Barbara Niven IS Ms. Christmas

**spoilers**

Ms. Christmas centers around a Holiday Shopping Network TV host (like QVC or Home Shopping Network) who has somehow become so beloved and admired that she has come to personify the Christmas season. Like a  real-life female Santa Claus but one whose career is hawking Christmas products on TV when she is not being honored by mayors or heading up Christmas Parades. This one definitely comes under one of those Hallmarks in which the business practicalities do not bear looking at too closely.  Like what does Ms. Christmas do the rest of the year? Anyway, We learn that Ms. Christmas has received the bad news that she has only 1 or 2 years to live due to a diagnosis that we can only assume is cancer though it is unspecified in the beginning. We learn later it is a brain tumor. This will be her last Christmas at the Network and she wants to make a kind of farewell tour in person. She has detected that people seem to be disconnected from the Christmas spirit this year. I guess sales are down. She is making her long-time top producer/right-hand woman/ surrogate daughter, Amanda, (Erica Durance) her replacement. And this tour will serve as her training ground for moving from behind the camera to in front of the camera.

The main plot turns on Ms. Christmas keeping her diagnosis a secret from everyone except the owner of the network (credibly played by Judith Maxie) who has insisted on having a Nurse (Brennan Elliot) accompany her on her tour. There is also the matter of Ms Christmas’s old fiance of many years ago reappearing to reignite their romance. The movie is saved by the marvelous performance of Barbara Niven as Ms. Christmas and Brennan Elliot as the sweet and compassionate nurse who falls in love with Amanda. They both give charming performances and save this movie from what, on paper, looks like a disaster waiting to happen. Barbara Niven is sparkly, sincere, and just lovely. She makes you forget that she is essentially a female Ron Popeil in Christmas attire. We wait in suspense for her heartbreaking secret to be revealed to her loving assistant. Although Erica Durance plays a good guy in this one, It must be said that her first reaction to learning about her surrogate mother’s diagnosis was really… umm, not compassionate. She was, of course, heartbroken, but also mad because she found out by accident on her own. She made it all about her and her hurt feelings that Ms. C. kept her tragic diagnosis a secret from her. Her mentor apologizes and explains that telling her about her illness would somehow have made it “real,” but Amanda accuses her of being selfish! She leaves her side to think about things leaving Ms Christmas there alone and devastated. I mean I was kind of expecting something of this sort, as Hallmark is all about last-minute conflict, but I was still shocked at her behavior. Thankfully Amanda does come to her senses. I was expecting her to have a problem with Nurse Brennan keeping it a secret from her as well, which also would have been very bad. But thankfully, she does not blame Brennan at all and the romance between them doesn’t miss a beat. Then poor Ms. C. has a bad reaction to some of her meds and collapses. She ends up in the hospital and Barbara Niven does not have a speck of makeup on for those scenes. I was very impressed. (And she still looks gorgeous.) I’ll say it again. Barbara Niven really gives a terrific and authentic performance. 10 Christmas Stars. Her old love persistently pursues her and convinces her to give him another chance despite her terminal illness. Sadly, there is no last-minute Christmas miracle, which I definitely would have been OK with me in this case. The ending was open-ended with Ms. Christmas still alive and kicking so…Maybe? Despite everything the movie was not depressing thanks to some humor and good acting.